MYTHS, RITUALS AND MEDICINE MEN FOR UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATION: AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL CRITIQUE OF THE CASE FOR MARKETING

It is over twenty years since March and Simon launched their attack on “classical” organisation theory. At the time their castigation of Gulick and Urwick for enunciating what Simon and March recognized as homely proverbs, myths and slogans seemed quite brilliant. The major purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that, in retrospect, it was not: myths, rituals and medicine men should not be spurned, but the significance of the part they play in ordering experience and action in educational organisations should be fully explored. This is what this paper attempts to do, taking the Doyle/Newbould case for marketing, published in 1980 in this journal, as a case in point.